August 14 Second seeded Romanian Simona Halep sleepwalked through the first set before producing a remarkable transformation to claim a semi-final berth with a 0-6 6-3 6-1 comeback win over defending champion Agnieszka Radwanska at the Rogers Cup on Friday. Radwanska avoided elimination in a last desperate charge over Alize Cornet to win 6-4 in the third.
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Wozniacki played despite recovering from a nagging calf injury and fell in a close match to Bencic 7-5, 7-5 before indicating she felt pushed to play by the WTA rules.
World number one Serena Williams continued her dominance over Germany’s Andrea Petkovic with a 6-3, 6-2 victory in the third round of the WTA Rogers Cup.
Kerber, who won her fourth Premier-level title of the year at the Bank Of The West Classic in Stanford last week and extended her winning streak to seven matches in a row here, pushed Halep hard – she not only toughed out the 58-minute second set, but she was also leading in the third set, 3-2.
Ukrainian Lesia Tsurenko beat Witthoeft 6-3, 6-4, while Italian Roberta Vinci took 78 minutes to dispose of Russian Daria Gavrilova by the same score. Her luck evaporated quickly as Halep returned to serve where she pulled out a magnificent triple match point to end one of the most topsy-turvy matches between two superstars in their sport. “I tried to be aggressive and take the ball as soon as possible, because I know she has good defense”. She’ll next face either fifth-seeded Ana Ivanovic of Serbia or Slovenian qualifier Polona Hercog in the quarter-finals.
“At the beginning I couldn’t move my legs”.
Unseeded Belinda Bencic topped Sabine Lisicki 6-1, 1-6, 7-6 (3) to keep her run going.
The Spaniard dropped to Serena Williams within the closing after defeating four top-15 people in the All England Membership.
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Williams, who never faced a break point and held all nine of her service games in the 62-minute match on center court, barely broke a sweat Thursday.
